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Enlarge ImageRequest to buy this photoInvision for Sony Computer Entertainment AmericaPlayStation executive Adam Boyes, second from left, watches a man play
Dying Light at the PlayStation 4 launch last month in New York. U.S. and British spies have infiltrated fantasy gaming.

By Mark Mazzetti and Justin ElliottThe New York Times • Tuesday December 10, 2013 6:48 AM

Not limiting their activities to the earthly realm, U.S. and British spies have infiltrated the
fantasy worlds of
World of Warcraft and
Second Life, conducting surveillance and scooping up data in the online games played by
millions of people across the globe, according to newly disclosed classified documents.

Fearing that terrorist or criminal networks could use the games to communicate secretly, move
money or plot attacks, the documents show, intelligence operatives have entered terrain populated
by digital avatars that include elves, gnomes and supermodels.

The spies have created make-believe characters to snoop and to try to recruit informers, while
also collecting data and contents of communications between players, according to the documents,
disclosed by the former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden. Because militants often
rely on features common to video games — fake identities, voice and text chats, a way to conduct
financial transactions — U.S. and British intelligence agencies worried that they might be
operating there, according to the papers.

Online games might seem innocuous, a top-secret 2008 NSA document warned, but they had the
potential to be a “target-rich communication network” allowing intelligence suspects “a way to hide
in plain sight.”

But for all their enthusiasm — so many CIA, FBI and Pentagon spies were hunting around in
Second Life, the document noted, that a “deconfliction” group was needed to avoid
collisions — the agencies might have inflated the threat.

The documents do not cite any counterterrorism successes from the effort. Former U.S.
intelligence officials, current and former gaming company employees and outside experts said in
interviews that they knew of little evidence that terrorist groups viewed the games as havens to
communicate and plot operations.

Games “are built and operated by companies looking to make money, so the players’ identity and
activity is tracked,” said Peter W. Singer of the Brookings Institution, an author of
Cybersecurity and Cyberwar: What Everyone Needs to Know. “For terror groups looking to
keep their communications secret, there are far more effective and easier ways to do so than
putting on a troll avatar.”

The surveillance, which also included Microsoft’s Xbox Live, could raise privacy concerns. It is
not clear exactly how the agencies got access to gamers’ data or communications, how many players
might have been monitored or whether Americans’ communications or activities were captured.

One U.S. company, the maker of
World of Warcraft, said that neither the NSA nor its British counterpart, the Government
Communications Headquarters, had gotten permission to gather intelligence in its game. Many players
are Americans, who can be targets of surveillance only with approval from the nation’s secret
intelligence court. The spy agencies, however, face far fewer restrictions on collecting certain
data or communications overseas.

“We are unaware of any surveillance taking place,” said a spokesman for Blizzard Entertainment,
based in Irvine, Calif., which makes
World of Warcraft. “If it was, it would have been done without our knowledge or
permission.”

A spokeswoman for Microsoft declined to comment. Philip Rosedale, the founder of
Second Life and a former chief executive officer of Linden Lab, the game’s maker, declined
to comment. Current Linden executives did not respond to requests for comment.

A Government Communications Headquarters spokesman would neither confirm nor deny any
involvement in gaming surveillance. An NSA spokeswoman declined to comment.

According to U.S. officials and documents that Snowden provided to
The Guardian, which shared them with
The New York Times and ProPublica, spy agencies grew worried that terrorist groups might
use virtual worlds to establish safe communications channels.